So long are those words on our paper
September 5th, 2007 • chatter
Well, I can’t do it any more. At least not right now. I’ve pretty much given up on reading Jeffrey Burton Russell’s Satan: The Early Christian Tradition right now. I can’t trudge through more of his inundating writing. Don’t get me wrong, I like how he presents everything in a fairly no-nonsense fashion but I’ve grown extremely tired of him having to reaffirm every little detail more than two times. Not to mention his laborious use of footnotes and how this takes up far too much reading real estate for me. Mr. Russell, you really could have put scant footnotes with more expanded explanations in the Appendix, I really do not feel like reading four footnotes that take up over 3/4 of my page. I don’t like sacrificing content over background information. I’ve heard the later volumes in his set on The Devil get better but it’s hard to plow through 700 pages of footnotes to get to the one good book. Looks like it’s time to pick up something a bit less “heavy” for reading. Perhaps I can finally get to some more metal oriented books or perhaps my books on Freemasonry.
In other news, I’ve been moderately busy at work. I bust my ass some days — such as yesterday — but others I sit around and play video games or watch a movie because there’s literally nothing I can get done. I’ve taken up smoking hookah just about everyday in place of smoking a cigarette…or 10. I’d much prefer to sit and smoke something herbal and sweet (not marijuana, yuck) than suck on a cigarette that’s going to last 5 minutes. My second hookah should arrive tomorrow afternoon from Hookah-Hookah which is awesome because it’s coming with 10 more flavours of tobacco and I love HH’s tobacco. I also frequent a local hookah cafe about 2-3 times a week, typically at least twice. The proprietors of said establishment are some pretty cool people and they make awesome Turkish coffee. I need to ask one of the owners if she’ll show me how so I can try and mess it up make it at home.
I’ve gotten three new CDs in the last week, all from bands on Myspace. Two are from a guy by the name of Brandon who’s proved himself a terrific multi-instrument musician. One CD is from his black metal band Satanic Dirge (now In Staid Grace) (my review is here) and the other is from his progressive metal outfit Rainwound which I’ll be reviewing shortly. Both are far above expectations for a one-man band. I just received the CD from Subject to Thoughts yesterday but have not yet had a chance to listen to it. Apparently, Brandon also lends guitar duties to this CD so he’s a very busy man. Somehow, he’s managing to write and produce his next album while in the throes of college right now. That’s time management.
My girlfriend started classes last week however, I was “denied” acceptance this semester. I say “denied” because I was applying for a second degree but after my transcripts came through, FAU decided they didn’t want to accept 2/3 of my credits and instead enrolled me as a transfer freshman. I wasn’t happy about this but I tried to work with it. Then I find out that I can’t even be accepted for this semester since the freshman registration had ended in June. Thanks, Admissions Department, I didn’t want to go to school anyway.
As a closer, I just picked up the new CD from Russian band The Morningside and boy, I’m impressed. It’s their label debut that’s a mix of black metal and doom however, I haven’t heard anything black metal-esque yet and I’m 4 tracks deep. I’m surprised at the fact that they’re singing in English instead of Russian which is most common for any album from Russia or the Eastern Bloc (or their respective language). It’s an impressive first disc, I must say.
